Kevin's Watch

Me too Av. I'm on early shift and find it hard to sleep knowing I've to be up at 5 am. I get five days of this on the trot on a three week rotation and it never gets any easier! Oh well, at least I've got good company!

Haha, I'm up at 5am every week day.

lorin wrote: Sending you one of my magic pills. They work on an elephant.

Thanks for the thought. I don't take sleeping tablets though.

I bought new shoes yesterday.

--A

Paying handsomely for my good weather romp.

Actually slept well last night. GF got up for the cats, and I woke feeling rested for a change. and it's Friday, so half-day(ish).

--A

I've had an interesting day. Batty, MagickMarker and I went to see the new Star Trek movie this morning. Then we came home and I spent an hour doing a live Q&A event on Facebook. The amazing part was that I wasn't just nattering to myself the whole time. People actually stopped by and asked me questions!

Then we ordered Chinese food for dinner. Will probably do some knitting tonight.

aliantha wrote: Then we ordered Chinese food for dinner. Will probably do some knitting tonight.

I remember Chinese. God I miss Chinese food. The greasier the better.

Going to Costco tomorrow. Plan on losing my mind (and money) there. I buy all the fruit, cut it up and freeze it for smoothies. And I will buy smoked salmon, and Feta cheese, and chopped salad, and grated romano, and mushrooms and wild salmon, and tabouli and pesto and hangars and and and and.... and then I am going to 42nd and sell my body to pay the bill.

Avatar wrote:Actually slept well last night. GF got up for the cats, and I woke feeling rested for a change. and it's Friday, so half-day(ish).

--A

What do you mean "get up for the cats"? Change their diapers? Midnight feeding? Uh....Av, are you becoming a crazy old cat man?

lorin wrote:

Avatar wrote:Actually slept well last night. GF got up for the cats, and I woke feeling rested for a change. and it's Friday, so half-day(ish).

--A

What do you mean "get up for the cats"? Change their diapers? Midnight feeding? Uh....Av, are you becoming a crazy old cat man?

I dunno how it works with dogs, but a cat will pester you to death when he/she believes it's time for you to get up and feed him/her. Not that that's ever happened to me...

Mine are not above sticking a claw up my nose if they believe they are staving. It's quite effective. Very difficult to sleep through. 'Starving' means they can either see the bottom of their food bowl, or they're scandalized by the idea of eating kibble for breakfast when there are cans that could be opened.

I saw this... probably the day you posted it lorin, and basically the whole post made me happy:

lorin wrote:I've been doing exceptionally well emotionally these days considering the state of my body. Anyway I feel a shift in me. Mental not physical. My foster daughter Jafari came to my house this week. She is the only one I still have contact with. Anyway she busted her butt and cleaned my art studio for me.I did some of it but she did most of it. It looks great and I feel able to do some small , not intricate work.

I have become friendly with my neighbor which is amazing considering my neighborhood. She was a dentist in Peru, fell in love with an American Peruvian and moved here. She can't practice dentistry here without more schooling so she works as a dental receptionist and cleans houses. So we worked out that she does my vacuuming and washes the kitchen floor once a week in exchange for doing her laundry at my house. I can do cleaning but the vacuuming and mopping motion is very painful. She has two adorable little girls that I have become attached to. This is a huge step for me since I always avoided children because it reminded me I never had any.

Like, these things - huge "YAY" for you!


Jafari. Sounds like she worked hard, was taking her place in the process of "gettin' stuff done," and you're proud of her in this.

lorin wrote:AND I am writing again. Slowly. Hands are numb which makes it an adventure. I am staying away from FB for the most part. I do glance in once a day but don't look at all the forums I used to. They made me feel frustrated. The whole site makes me frustrated because everyone is wonderful and everyone is productive and it makes me feel like the audience to life.

That is the way of Facebook, isn't it?
Even on FB in general... outside of a forum specifically dedicated to jewelry or crafting... the people who are often showing the shiny, happy moments in their lives... sometimes I wonder if some of them actually make more of those kinds of posts when they're going through an especially rough patch.
(I've only got anecdotal evidence, though.)

Oh, also, can I quote you on this one:
"The whole site makes me frustrated because everyone is wonderful and everyone is productive and it makes me feel like the audience to life."
('Coz it's brilliant.)

lorin wrote:Lastly, and biggest of all, I have re-established some communication with my younger brother. Let go of all my agendas with him and his wife and moved on.

Yay! <3

lorin wrote:I think a lot of this comes from doing a new kind of work with a new therapist. I have been very bad in selecting therapists in the past (I could write a book) but this one is right for me. And he doesn't take my...

Yaaaaaay!
There's a certain way of "not taking my nonsense" that some people in my life do well.
And it's really, reaalllllly useful and helps me grow.

Sorus wrote:Eighth anniversary at work. Not something to celebrate. Thought I'd be there a year at the maximum. So it goes.

The clique was in full clique mode, so no one even said congrats. My minion kept wishing me a happy birthday. I kept telling him it wasn't my birthday. Sometimes I can't tell if he's messing with me, or if he really doesn't understand.

But this I just saw, so... belatedly,

And as for me, over here... it was a peaceful Sunday.
Church in the morning was very good, and then I had absolutely -nothing- I was required to do after that.
I usually have stuff in the afternoon and get pretty tired-out.

But I got to chill around home, so I went to a bit of a math class for fun, then called a friend I haven't talked to in awhile and SKYPE'd a family member. =)
It was pretty good.
And now I'm here again yammerin' away to you guys!

Sorus wrote:Mine are not above sticking a claw up my nose if they believe they are staving. It's quite effective. Very difficult to sleep through.

Yeah...Mine wants me to let him out at 04h30. The fact that he only came in at 04h00 is completely irrelevant.

Also, I have floor to ceiling mirrored sliding doors on my bedroom cupboards...he's discovered that dragging his claws down the mirror is very effective at getting us up.

Since I had to go and pick up some poor cat that got run over in front of my place at 05h00 a few months ago, I'm very disinclined to let him out at that time. He does not appreciate my concern for his welfare though.

--A

There's something about 4am and cats.

Mr. Wommy and the Lady Morgana have very different kibble eating styles. Wommas inhales the whole bowl at once, but Morgan eats a few bites (the classic "if I can see the bottom of the bowl, I'm done") and moves away. It would be ideal if we could leave her bowl out so she could graze at will -- but Wommas has never met a piece of kibble he didn't think ought to be in his tummy. So in the interest of keeping him from being as big as a house, we have to police her kibble bowl pretty closely and stow it atop the fridge when she's had her three bites.

Sometimes I think she deliberately walks away when we're not looking, so Wommas can have more to eat. Like he needs it.

Anyway. Sometimes with this system, Morgan doesn't finish her kibble, so Batty (who often stays up all night to write) will give her food bowl to him at 4am or so. This becomes a problem when Batty *isn't* staying up all night, but Wommas still believes he needs to be fed at 4am. And it becomes a problem for MagickMaker and me when Batty is housesitting, because then Mr. Wommy comes to one of *us* at 4am.

As nice as cuddling with cats is, I got to a point in life when I valued a good night's sleep more. So the bedroom door is closed (also because of the dang schoolhouse clock that clangs on the half hour).

Patches, the cat we adopted last year who is 15 or more years old, lives outdoors. She wouldn't stop peeing and pooing in the house and we couldn't take it. I felt so guilty but she immediately began to look better and put on weight she had been losing. She still kills stuff despite having lost a fang, and anyone looking at her would think she is a cat in her prime. Go figure. She has a very nice place to sleep, a porch sofa on which I've been known to nap myself. Which she doesn't let the dog use, ever. Haha.

I've never had a cuddly cat, I don't think. Mr. Wommy just sits out in the hallway and yells at us. Or, actually, he'll jump up on the bed and purr in your ear. I've yet to get a claw in the nose, though (yikes, Sorus!).

Cats are so weird. Squeaker used to head-butt my hand and demand pets as soon as I began to drift off to sleep. I learned to sleep with my hands under the covers because of that cat. She also thought Wheat Thin crackers were cat treats. *So* weird.

aliantha wrote:
Cats are so weird. Squeaker used to head-butt my hand and demand pets as soon as I began to drift off to sleep. I learned to sleep with my hands under the covers because of that cat. She also thought Wheat Thin crackers were cat treats. *So* weird.

Min used to be obsessed with sourdough crackers. I don't remember the brand - I don't think they still make them. If I didn't give her one voluntarily, she'd pry the box open and lick the whole lot of them the moment I turned my back. Never done that with anything since - she doesn't usually have much interest in people food.

Kara is the usual instigator of Claw Up the Nose. She is a very cuddly cat though - I may have once convinced someone in the waiting room at a vet office that a Turkish Facehugger was an actual breed of cat.

Hahaha, why don't we have a cat thread?

Well...in other news...it's Tuesday. We doing an event/presentation/workshop thing for clients on Thursday, and things being what they are, nothing ever gets done until the last minute, so much mad rushing about is in progress.

Ah, joy.

--A

Am I excited? A very old friend is going to visit. We were together through infant, junior and secondary school, but I haven't seen him since I left school in 1970! He lives mostly in Africa, in Cotonou which I find is in Benin, a country I've never heard of. He is in England for leg surgery and is going to come up to Lincoln by gyro!!! which I gather is a small helicopter type thingy. He thinks he is going to hire a cab for the day to shuttle us around Lincoln. I think he must be made of money. Not sure yet when, but I'm sure going to enjoy it when he comes.

Haha, sounds fun Io. Gyrocopters are pretty cool...like a helicopter version of a microlight.

I feel like this is going to be a very busy day, and I'm already putting off all the things that have to be done.

--A

Well, I'm not sure how you all (or as dpharmed would say....ya'all) will take this but I promise I am not evil. Maybe though I have my priorities screwed up. There are two pending deaths in my life right now. My father is dying. My attitude about it is a bit off center. I want him to go, or at least leave me out of it. His pending death has brought up a myriad of abusive 'scenes' from the past. And has evoked only anger in me. (I think I need to take this to another thread) The other death is Helldog aka Mya. She is struggling to be the puppy she was. She wants to do her job and guard the house. She tore her knee tendon last year. I got the cheap surgery (3500) that is normally done on small dogs. The vet said she will tear the other within a year and bingo....she tore the other. I do not have another 3500 dollars for a 14 year old dog. It is only a half tear but mostly she is using one leg, the leg that was operated which will eventually cause that surgery to go bad. It is time....I know it......she knows it........but I can't do it. I know she is suffering but there are days when she is ok and happy. I have had her 14 years and she is a part of my life, more than any human she has been there for me. I know the right thing to do and Im not doing it for selfish reasons. THAT is what makes me evil.

Lorin

You aren't evil. I've been there and it's one of the most difficult decisions. Lost my eldest cat earlier this year - I'd hoped she would go peacefully on her own - she'd been having trouble getting around for a while (arthritis) but she was content to just sleep most of the time. On the last day, she stopped eating and wouldn't stop crying, so I knew it was time. It's never enough time. You want every second you can get. That's not evil. That's love.

And yes, I have cried more over losing a pet than I have over various blood relatives. They've always been there for me when people have let me down and abandoned me. If that makes me evil, I can live with that.